But California continues to struggle. The state's jobless rate stubbornly held at 12.6 percent, unchanged from March. That is the third-highest unemployment rate in the nation, behind Michigan and Nevada, and significantly above the U.S. jobless rate of 9.9 percent.

Experts said the state will probably continue to lag the national recovery for a while. "We're not even keeping up with the job gains of other states," observed Michael Bernick, a former EDD director.

Among the positive signs for Silicon Valley was an increase in hiring in the tech manufacturing sector, possibly a sign that companies are beginning to spend money again on computer system upgrades.

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The metropolitan area, consisting of Santa Clara and San Benito counties, added 700 manufacturing jobs in April. That is a better-than-average gain for this time of year, when normally there is a loss, said Janice Shriver, an EDD labor market specialist.

Some of the gain — 300 jobs — was in computer and electronic manufacturing. The region usually sheds 800 manufacturing jobs between March and April, Shriver said.

The size of the job losses over the year is also declining, Shriver noted. In March the valley was 25,000 jobs below where it was the year before; in April, that shrank to 16,000.

"That shows we might be coming back to normal," she said. But the problems in Europe are still a wild card, with a potential to affect sales of technology there.

Scot Melland, CEO of Dice Holdings, which operates several job listing sites, said it looks like the corner has been turned in tech hiring.

Dice.com, which lists professional tech and engineering jobs, had a 33 percent gain since January, Melland said.

And more gains may be ahead as the tech industry heads into its next upgrade cycle, he said.

Nationally, Dice has seen an increase in the number of full-time jobs being posted by employers, another good sign for job growth. Coming out of a recession, employers usually hire part-time workers and contractors. It is only when they are confident the economy is recovering that they hire full-time employees, Melland noted.

There were gains in several sectors, including the professional and business services sector that includes many technology jobs, government and manufacturing. The valley also added jobs in private and public education, particularly colleges, universities and professional schools; and health care.

The total number of payroll jobs in Silicon Valley was 848,800, down 1.9 percent from a year earlier, but up a bit from March.

Across the Bay Area, the number of unemployed dropped — by 6,100 people in Silicon Valley; by 7,000 in the East Bay and by 6,600 in the San Francisco area.